Arundel and the Local Castle

 

Yesterday I wrote about an experience that occurred the last time I visited the stunning Arundel Castle that stands not ten minutes away from our home in  Littlehampton a couple of miles south of Arundel. We consider it one of our blessings that we get to see this great castle nearly every day of our lives because it so close. Yet no matter how many years we have lived with this fabulous image that hits you in the face as you drive to the top of the hill, it never fails to give the same amount pleasure at every occasion it comes into view.

 

 

Some summers, I have a bought a season ticket that allows me the wander around the grounds immediately surrounding the castle where it becomes more massive the closer you get to the base of the great towers and walls. I have spent countless hours wandering around, walking up to lose myself for a while in the Collector Earls Garden that is, delightfully mad in design with much of the imaginative, yet fairly useless structures, built for beauty and style more than shelter and made from trees that had fallen in the grounds during what we know as The Great Storm of 1987. My favourite part of the Earls Garden, are N0.1 Oberon’s Palace that is now used during the festival for the open air Shakespeare plays, a perfect setting. Then I truly madly deeply love the Stumpery; this is exactly what it says, it is a garden made up of upside down tree stumps with equally odd planting arrangements in and around them, a completely bonkers garden, a strange and brilliant idea said to encourage unusual beetles and bugs, though in all the times I have wandered through I have not seen a one. Good butterflies though. On Friday as I guided my husband along my own preferred route through, he told me that I really should stop showing it off and proclaiming a delighted ‘TA DAH’ at each corner turned. He told me that contrary to my claims, this was actually not MY garden, that it belongs to the Fitzalan-Howard family of Dukes and Duchesses of Norfolk and was designed and built by the Earl of Arundel. Well, it is my garden, in my world! It is my secret escape place. I feel that garden, it belongs to my soul.

 

 

Steve and I had not taken the complete tour of the castle for a number of years and since the summer season is about to close, we took Friday afternoon off work to be tourists for the day. We had meant to do this all summer but each time we planned to go, something or other came up and prevented us from doing so. We did two laps of the castle rooms on Friday. The tour ends at the shop and restaurant that are both also excellent. From there one only has to wander along to, and then past the exit sign and begin again at no further charge. It is such and assault on the senses that it is nearly impossible to take everything in during a quick walk around the rooms. We were both surprised at how quickly most other visitors passed along the rope guided route. May I add that I did not think much of some people’s lack of management of their unruly children either, but I am probably showing my age there.

 

 

We had actually never got as far as seeing the bedrooms before and I am not sure that the bedrooms were even part of the tour years ago but I may be wrong. I asked one of the volunteers about the bedrooms and she said that there are twenty bedrooms, each with its own adjoining bathroom. I asked another volunteer why in many of the family portraits the Duke was holding a cane. She explained that it was the Baton of Office of the Earl Marshall of England. That comes along with the title, Duke of Norfolk, since he is the premier Duke of England and his duties include responsibility for all state occasions. I knew that, but the Baton was new to me. Learn one thing a day and I am happy.

 

 

Since we took the tour, the double tour, on Friday we have asked all our friends if they had been inside the Castle. Some said they had, but not for years and others had never been inside the castle that they cannot help but see so much and so often. Many of our friends are of course fellow athlete and do much of their run training through the park and in surrounding countryside where it is pretty much impossible not to find a view of the castle pop into the frame before your eyes, even from miles away.

 

 

It is spectacular, both outside and inside and since I so love the views that I see from so many angles during my run and bike training I am definitely going to make it one of my 2017 New Year Resolutions to do the tour inside this wonderful castle again next summer, probably earlier in the year before it is filled with tourists from other parts of the world. This is on my doorstep, what a gift. It is filled with amazing treasures, and history, with astonishing rooms, ceilings, furniture and a mind boggling amount of priceless paintings, libraries, dungeons and the Keep. It is a true wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Evening with Royal Ghosts

 

About twenty years ago a friend of mine, who was regular volunteer at events during the annual Arundel Festival in August, invited me to take his place since he was unexpectedly not able to perform those duties on a couple of occasions. I was happy to take his place since it meant that I got to attend those events without the expense of buying a ticket. On one occasion I had to arrive early and make sure that there were no puddles of water on the seats laid out for an open air Shakespeare performance in the Tilting Yard. I would then show people to their seat or point them in the right direction. I would then be able to sit on the grass and enjoy the evening. Eazy Peazy.

 

The last time on my short stint as a helper was at a concert by a string quartet in the Barons Hall inside the castle. When I reported for duty and explained again who I was and who I was replacing, they had a brief chat amongst themselves, during which time I realised that I was going to get the job nobody else wanted but I didn’t mind, because again, I got in to the evening for free and did not mind being an usherette or a go-for. A rather posh lady came back to me and said that they were short of somebody to guard the picture gallery and would I mind spending the evening there. She said that I would still here the music, since I would be directly behind the performers but I could not see them and would I mind that.

 

 

Then she walked me to my post and explained that my duty for the evening was simply to make sure that anybody who had taken a wrong turn and wandered into the picture gallery was turned back. The performers would be the only people that evening that should be passing by me from the waiting room where they would be preparing for the performance.  

The woman asked me if I minded being asked to stay there, and explained there would more than likely not be anybody to turn away, it was just a precaution. I smiled at her a said that I was fine, that I was happy in my own company. 

Actually I was not just in my own company. If you have ever taken the tour around the castle rooms, you would know that this quite a long gallery, in fact it is a wide hallway, where many of the earlier Dukes and Duchesses of Norfolk stand life sized, held immortalised inside a huge gold frame gazing as ancient portraits do, directly at the viewer. The gallery was in semi darkness apart from the small picture lights illuminating these ancestral ghosts of former centuries.

 

 

As a child, I was never taught to be afraid of the dark or of being left alone, in fact, it suited my family to do just the reverse, and make sure that I learned that there was nothing there in the darkness that was not there in the full light of day and therefore nothing to be wary about in my surroundings, in a house where lights were turned off to save on the electricity costs; I would be in trouble if my parents got back to find that the shilling they had put in the meter had run out when they returned.

 

So I stayed in the long gallery in the company of a historic family whose faces and character were painstakingly recorded by the artists of their day. They have now become priceless art works by genius painters whose names are known throughout this modern world. 

My reverie was only briefly disturbed when the members of the string quartet were guided in to the Barons Hall where they would perform for the audience seated there awaiting a musical evening. The hubbub I had heard building through the door as members of the public entered and settled, quickly died to expectant silence as the recital began. I sat listening to the music drifting quite clearly from what was for that night, a concert hall. For a while I sat and stared back into the eyes of the Dukes and Duchesses of old, Lady this and Lord that who were all long dead. Mostly they were looking at me through stern eyes above a proud bearing, but some seemed to share my amusement at the predicament I had found myself thrown into. 

A few looked at me with a sort of curiosity, as if they were asking the same question that had crossed my mind. What madness had put a total stranger to the Fitzalan-Howard dynasty in such a position? Who was this woman standing there pretending to be the night watchman? My thoughts and seemingly those of the forebears of the present noble family, moved on to wondering, what sort of guard could I possibly be? There was I in the midst of vast wealth in the form of family portraits of so many of the ancestors of the group of people who had inherited this gigantic wealth of oil paintings. There are Van Dyck’s, Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Canaletto’s. Treasures that were way beyond my imagination in value. 

I decided to make the most of my certain luck, at having been so casually placed in such an enjoyable position. It was so peaceful, yet frightfully bizarre and I felt blessed, as so many thoughts flew around in my head, like what if the present Duke should stride down the hall to join the proceedings, bump into me and ask who the devil I was and what the devil I was doing there. Although I had ID in my bag, I had not been asked to show it to anybody and nobody had asked to look in my bag, something I would have thought would be standard for something like this. 

Well it was their worry and not mine, I was totally relaxed and very happy, no more than that, almost joyous that the Fitzalan predecessors seemed so comfortable sharing this evening with me, they were not threatened by me and I was equally at ease with them, totally delighted to make their grand acquaintance. 

During the interval when I briefly saw the string quartet as they took a break from playing. The lady who had appointed me to my delightful position came in and gave me a cup of tea to keep me going. How kind; or was it guilty conscience at ditching this stranger in the place that everybody else thought was too spooky for words. My gain, their loss. 

The second half commenced and I continued to commune with my new friends to the soothing sound of chamber music that seemed astonishingly appropriate. It was one of the greatest pleasures of my life; so tranquil and peaceful and best of all, that I was alone with all these fine people who I was sure had quite taken to me. The evening flew by through sheer pleasure and I will remember this sheer chance happening for as long as I live.

 

 

Branagh v Billy-Bob

 

Last night Steve and I piled into the little local Windmill Theatre yet again for one of the latest fashion for film/theatre goers that I find to be a generous gift to me in my own tiny quirky world. This newish idea of showing a show directly form the West End or a Grande Opera House somewhere in the world and allowing ordinary beings who could not afford an outing to a top ranking performance such as these in their wildest dreams. Theatre prices need saving up for these days and here at last is a way of bringing the worlds greatest performers to small town arts buffs for a fraction of the prices ‘Up West’. The cost of our seats for this production of The Entertainer by John Osborne starring Kenneth Branagh was £14 each which is a fraction of the price the people who were actually in the Garrick Theatre last night had paid; for us the Windmill price of entry had doubled on the day to day cost of a movie visit. Seemed like a win to me.

 

Looking around the audience before the show started I saw that it was almost the same audience as the other ‘Direct From’ treats that we had been to see in our small seaside town of late. So in fact I am incorrect saying that this is top theatre at bargain price for the masses, the ordinary people. They don’t want to see this wonder; they would rather pay double the cinema price to see some trash action movie/horror/sci-fi in the Imax cinema. Yet it is a way for the cinema to make a little out of this new fashion and that is fair enough by my book. These are diamonds for glass prices.

 

 

Steve hated it from the first moment but he doesn’t like Branagh anyway. For myself, I realised too late to pop out to the car park, that I had left my distance glasses in the car which left me squinting at the screen for the hour and sixteen minutes of the first act that left me feeling slightly sickly. I thought Kenneth Branagh was brilliant as Archie Rice but found the play itself seeming not so much retro and dated and not yet classic, as sort of in the wrong time frame of reproduction rather than antique. I can see that I run the risk or finding myself in the same position as the small child who saw that the King did not have wonderful new clothes but that he was in truth completely starkers! Nobody can make me say I liked it because they think one should only heap praise great writers and actors and all their works. It brought me no pleasure and certainly not satisfaction at seeing their greatness. 

I do find it fascinating the professionals like Kenneth Branagh can cope with the learning of new specialist skills for part such as this and I was more then a little distracted with his nicely stylised dancing, that was soft and pretty with lovely head, body and arm lines that cannot have been easy to get to grips with for a man who does not have Fred Astaire’s frame. Good job Ken!

 

 

Today I found myself cruelly comparing Kenneth Branagh and this production to the TV series of Goliath that we have been watching on Amazon Prime of late and fearless of criticism of my intellectual state and equally fearless of making this strange comparison, must admit that the performance that gave the greatest pleasure was Billy Bob Thornton’s by a country mile. Playing a drunken, washed up lawyer living in a motel room next door to the closest bar who gets to grips with a really nasty case and against all odds blah, blah, blah. The story of a very rich company getting away with evil doings is heavy going. Billy Bob Thornton playing the down and not quite out, legal eagle Billy McBride is utterly astonishing; gosh he looks awful in this part and at least ten years older than he actually is though, I must add, still strangely appealing. William Hurt also gets my admiration as the head of the rich law firm who also looks awful and actually plays a really truly unbelievably awful power crazy person.

 

 

 

 

Write Night: St Pauls Arts Centre Worthing

 

Worthing is my home town. My parents met, fell in love and got married there. I was conceived there, though I am Brightonian by birth. Apart from most of the war years I lived in the same house in Cranworth Road and went to Lyndhurst Road and Sussex Road Schools. I worked in a little shop and coffee bar in Bath Place until I went to work as a Post Office telephonist. My mum worked at the Connaught Theatre and my Dad worked at Lelliotts who made shop blinds.

 

So familiar with the town centre and yet yesterday afternoon I went into St Pauls for I do believe the first time. I have had a good think about it and cannot remember ever going in that church. The Connaught is across Chapel Road from there as is The Post Office. I’ve been in the library around the corner countless times and all the shops nearby, but never entered that building whilst it was one of the town churches. I attended St Georges Church and Christchurch with my school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason Steve and I went there last night, was that it is now the new venue for the Worthing Wow Write Nights. The church that is a grade II listed building and has had a two million pound refurbishment to turn it into a community venue. Although I thought it made a very interesting Café and Arts centre, I could not see where two million pounds went. A few tables and chairs, a settee or two plus the counter of the café and I suppose it has a kitchen now. But on the other hand I can see that it is now very useful for all sorts on functions like concerts, expo’s, meetings and gatherings of all kinds. 

I felt more comfortable being there for an evening of poetry and stories rather that Frasers Bar above the reception area of the Connaught over the road where these evenings were held previously. Neither Steve nor I have any use or liking for bars.

 

 

The café is very pleasant and the 50’ ceilings make it feel very light and spacious, though there is no getting away from the certain knowledge at a glance, that it was a church. However, I like churches much more then I like bars.

 

Steve and I chose to sit at one of the little café tables close to the door, we always to that in strange places; a sort of prepare for flight thing!  We had thought that this would mean we were sitting at the back because the chancel is at the far end of course. Well that was a mistake; we found out soon after the delightfully bubbly Melody Bridges opened the evening, by first going around taking names of people who wanted to share some of their work, and then with a little welcoming talk when she positioned herself with her back to the door which in turn meant, that we were sitting at the front and not in the easy escape spot at the back as planned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Melody had got around to our table, she did a quick double take at me because she had not seen me since I started to grow my hair again, it been over a year and I suppose that a crisp sporty hair cut is a far cry from the fuzzy curly mess my hair has grown back into. That surprise over Melody, came to me and said “Would you like to start the evening off and go first Daphne, you are always so confident”. Wrong Melody; I am always a nervous wreck approaching Write Nights and suffer a few sleepless nights preparing for them. I can’t imagine how she came to that conclusion about me. 

I read three of my most recant poems that were all on the dark side but then I have seen some dark happenings around my friends and family of late and it put me in mind of other sad times in my life and that is why I made these choices.

 

 

I read ‘Tricking my Memory Now Set Ablaze’ which is about the time years ago when both of my parents were suffering life threatening illnesses in two hospitals ten miles or so apart, making it a double agony. Another poem was one called, ‘For Beth’ and that sends my love and thoughts to a friend who is battling bravely with Cancer though she is roughly thirty years younger than I.  The last and most recent is called ‘For Michael’ and is about an absolutely shocking event; the murder of our cousin’s nephew, 27 year old Michael Hoolickin, who was stabbed a number of times whilst trying to help somebody else. He was just a young man, who all his family loved and he leaves a young child tragically without a father. This happened quite recently and though Steve and I had never met Michael, we feel sad and helpless for his family and share their grief. 

I know I should have taken something lighter to finish my reading on, but in my head I could not get away from all this recent dreadful news. 

I did manage to get through my readings without being overcome by emotion and because the first half dozen times I read them aloud at home as practice, I had ended in floods of tears. I worked on the reading until I could hold myself together and keep my head on straight. I was glad I had practiced so diligently to convey the terrible events of late without drowning the poems with tears.   

 

 

 

Exit from Venice and Entry to St Pauls

 

I wanted to make sure that I was still awake when Steve got home from working a few days in Venice. Before he went he told me that they had to wrap and move some household items from an apartment there. As you can imagine, nothing like that is easy in Venice where a barge has to be used for transport. When he got there he found that the apartment was enormous and was actually on three floors. Anyway it is what it is, when you get involved in these jobs abroad, arranged by somebody else. Actually he found it all most interesting and has not stopped talking about it yet. He said how nice the people were that they were working for, who plied them with teas coffees and sandwiches to keep them fuelled during the arduous climbs up and down five flights of stairs carrying furniture.

 

Steve had flown out to meet the friend he was working with who had driven the truck out there. He had travelled with Easy Jet and found it all a bit wearing since it was half term and both flights were seriously full but with a lot of children who were very noisy just because they are children. On the outward journey the flight was delayed by 90 minutes that meant he was late to bed when he got there and the flight back was later still. It was close to 1am when he got home.
 

In an effort to keep my eyes open I sat at a desk and did one of my random embroidery operations on a shirt of mine whilst the TV chirped on in the background. Michael Portillo was as charming as usual talking his way through one of his great train journeys programmes and then later of I was kept awake by stand up comic, Paul Chowdhry, who had me laughing so much I was in tears and wondering how come he gets away with all his quite outrageous jokes and comments. If you have never seen him take a peek on YouTube and you will see why he is on so late, not that he is rude, but a little on the dangerous side of what we are and are not supposed to say these days. In his case PC is just his initials.

 

Earlier in the evening I had sent Steve a text to ask how he would get in if I was asleep, but he managed to access the back door and was already shedding clothes through the kitchen and down the hall as he made his way directly to the bed. I managed to wake up at the usual time of 5.30 am this morning and since he is quite merciless at waking me up normally, I put all the lights and the kettle on and proceeded to get myself ready to go swimming and dressed in run kit for after the swim. I intended going, even if he didn’t make it. In the end he did get himself together and we were not even late arriving at the pool where he was coaching a group. When it came to the run however, all the stair climbs and long hours caught up and he had a fairly rubbish run, but we did at least cover the required 5km. When we got home again for him to make ready to go to work he handed me a small pile of soggy wet work clothes from rainy Venice. 

This evening he will come with me to my ‘Write Night’ in Worthing at St Pauls in Chapel Road where I will read several of my recent poems in a roomful of fellow scribblers. I really don’t know why I do it because I get so nervous. Steve know that and even though he finds these evening very hard work he comes to support and encourage me, and always tells me that I was best which is never the truth. The three pieces I am taking are all dark and very emotional and I just hope that even though I have read them aloud at home a good few times, that I can hold my own feelings back and still speak clearly. I find it a challenge but also find it encouraging and worthwhile for myself, it makes me happy, when my scribbling goes down half well. In a group of would be writers, I know that they have to listen to me, if they expect me to listen to them….. Fair doos!

Out of the Woods

 

Into the woods in fates dark sight

A less than easy path to take

Hidden there through fear and fright

Shadows sew a fiendish mistake

The cause and blame are mine outright

Acknowledged and unwelcome keepsake

Doubt careening uncontrolled, finite

What way, what way, what way retake

 

Secret emotions held in tight

Slipping behind all standards fake

What ill disease has brought this blight

False impressions outward make

Terror tearing past contrite

In disorientated confidence quake

Lost and helpless lonely plight

What way, what way, what way retake

 

Menacing phantom stands in limelight

Is it real this tight coiled snake

Despairing search up in starlight

Or can I from this nightmare wake

Take courage dragging soul to fight

And from the embers fire make

Take strengths firm hold to make all right

What way, this way your path remake

 

Summon less feeble spirit bright

Come destiny flooding a smoother lake

Forge back the darkness push back the night

Pull back, the empty reserves forsake

All cowardice in banishing excite

Responsibility is mine for pity’s sake

Out of the woods and into the light

Pride in this victory is wide awake

 

Irresponsible Dog Walkers

This is my daughter and son in law's dog Louis

 World's best behaved dog (and owners) 

 

This morning I had a good swim first thing and then added a short run along the promenade from the swimming pool and as far as the river, using the new decorative mock giant pebble seats, as a turning point before returning to the pool. It was an extra run that was not on my schedule but since Steve was not here today, he couldn’t stop me enjoying the fact that since I have lost a bit of weight, running has become fun again. It was a dull old day with not a hint of wind, cold enough though; I wore a hat over my wet hair and put on a pair of gloves for the first time this autumn.  

During the summer months dogs are not allowed at that end of the sea front, on the beach or the prom, but now they are back again.  I have nothing against dogs, I like dogs and they like me. What I don’t like are irresponsible owners that get beautiful hounds a bad name by not picking up the huge piles of poo that some of them deposit. This morning there was heaps of doggie doos all over the promenade. This is an area where mums and dads go out with their littlies to play, even in winter. On a nice day there is nothing better but to let the kiddies run around in a safe area away from any traffic.

 

Louis outside the East Beach Café 

So leaving these piles of smelly dog poos is just not playing the game is it? What are people playing at? The council provide bins to tip your poo bags into. If you don’t want to pick up your dogs dropping then you should not have a dog at all because you are an inconsiderate arse. It makes me livid. It really is not a difficult thing to do these days with the supermarkets selling packets of little plastic bags that are just the right size; all that is involved is to turn your bag back over you hand, pick up what YOUR dog has left behind and then neatly pull the bag over and tie it up. Not rocket science. 

 

 

Otherwise you should drive way out in the countryside and take your dog out in the woods, where a neglected set of droppings deep in the woodland would not be anything like as offensive as it is on the newly refurbished and now rather stylish looking sea front promenade walkway that Littlehampton District Council have provided for our pleasure, a smart modern place to go an exercise yourself at the same time as you give your faithful hound a nice run.

 

 

It’s like a return to the dark ages, when nobody cared and you would quite regularly step on a squelchy smelly mound but surely we have all passed beyond that haven’t we? Trying to make the world a better place? Most of us do behave responsibly; I don’t do a lot of dog walking but occasionally have my daughter’s gorgeous pile of curly black fur and happy face in my charge. Owning a dog is our choice, and mostly it is a great pleasure, this is the one little down side of keeping a dog, and they in return give you their reward, in love and devotion. The least you can do is not pretend that you didn’t see your dog take a dump. You people are a disgrace to the town and to yourselves, where is your conscience? Probably up your own arse!

 

 

 

 

 

Waste Not a Moment

 

Maybe I am getting older I think. Well actually I am older and getting older every day. I doesn’t matter a dot when you are young but when you get to my age,  you can clearly see the direction it is all going and there is no use worrying about your advancing years as long as you are doing as much as you can to look after your body, even though it is not as lovely to behold as it once was. It’s all you’ve got and better make the most of it and fill every moment and try your best not to waste a second of it, which is an area most of us neglect miserably. Me, I just try to keep busy and enjoy life as much as I can. 

This week has been a good week; my training has gone well with everything I planned to do, now done.  Monday, Wednesday, Friday starts with a swim at 6.30am then just on the Wednesday and Friday a 5km run. Tuesday and Thursday morning a turbo training session for bike practice. I still do the computer work for our business and that keeps me quietly beavering away much of the day though I do take time to write some nonsense or other on this, my Daf’s Diary page. 

On the entertainment front, we were very greedy and saw three movies which brought us, with training, office, home jobs and outings, to this weekend. Saturday, a longer bike session first thing before making arrangements in the office for Steve to make yet another work trip to Venice. When I tell friends that Steve is going to Venice for a few days, they all say “OOOO How lovely”.  Actually it is very hard and most awkward work because on this occasion, a person is being moved out of their home and away to another European area. This involves getting a barge and having it taken to the closest point to the person’s home. The furniture and decorative items are then carefully wrapped and carried down and wheeled along to a loading point for the barge. When this has been done a couple of hundred times, the barge is moved off to a custom point, where the barge is unloaded and then the items loaded onto a truck. So it is not exactly a sight seeing holiday. 

Saturday evening (last night) was our club swim session and it was made extra fun because a new, would be triathlete, joined us and it was her first proper training session. She said on Facebook this morning that this morning she could not lift here arms! Oh poor you Christine, but it will get easier! It was a good session and I too got a good workout. 

This morning Steve and I set off on our standard Sunday run in Angmering Park. It was a weird morning because there was a quite thick fret that had I presume come inland on the incoming tide, it also travels up the river along the valley. It’s extremely pretty but also a bit spooky. I don’t mind spooky in fact, it sets my imagination off with a bang. We saw a gorgeous young deer up really close and that for us is always a treat. We did a good time for our run and later when Steve checked it on the computer it was our best time for the exact same run in several years. It solved the question of why I got so tired along the way but of course, if I was running faster it would make me more tired. I had thought that I was paying for having worked hard at my training all week but had not thought about having a good Sunday run time. 

We had lunch together, Steve cooked cod wrapped in prosciutto with sage potatoes, broccoli spears and roast radishes and a tasty sauce. Whilst he had cooked, I had packed Steve a few things into his back pack, just a clothes change and one spare lot in case of rain. He left for the airport after lunch. He rang just a while back to say that annoyingly his flight was delayed by one and a half hours which would make his arrival at Venice Marco Polo quite late. 

Having been true to myself all week and kept my training going, below is today’s brain exercise due to the run in the woods, the result is probably the complete ruination of one of my favourite poets best known works, turning it into my run through the trees, but it is also a thank you to my dear Robert Frost who stays in paperback form ready for sleepless nights, by my bed always.

Sorry Robert! 

Stopping by Woods on an Autumn Morn

With apologies to, and thanks to Robert Frost

 

The woods ARE lovely, dark and deep,

And far removed from winters stark bare light

I too have promises to keep

To myself with my aims still in sight

 

The breeze now in autumn breathes a rustling sound

As thoughts spring from my head like leaves

Multitudinous trees of ev’ry shade around

A heart full of silent wishes heaves

 

Last of wilting wild flowers grow

Tweet twittering birdies fill the trees with sound

Caw, peewit, pink, pink all flow

With heaven’s song resound

 

Miles to go before I sleep

And miles I’ve gone have brought me sleep

No time for me to stand and weep

I too have promises to keep

 

Famine to Film Flood: Really!

 

 

Am I then, only person on the planet that finds it more than I little bit irritating that all the best films come out in Autumn? After the film famine that is summer, to the serious movie buff like me; when it was hard to find one vaguely interesting film that was not made for children.

Steve and I do try our best to support our tine local cinema, the Windmill that struggles to compete with the huge multiplex cinemas of this modern world. The Windmill is only kept open because most of the staff being volunteers; most of those are retired people who love the movies and get to see some of them for nixy poos by joining the small force who give up their time to help keep this ancient kino alive. 

Most of the summer the programmes, have held the most of the space for animated films, and general children’s entertainment. The hard chore movie goer is, during that time, neglected just a little bit. Yet last weekend the showing of Miss Saigon was a complete sell out as is was in Worthing eight miles away where they are putting on another two repeats. 

Now the children are back at school and there is a glut of big stars in huge movies and if you are a once a week cinemagoer, it is hard to catch all the good films that you want to see. Apart from the one off musical last week, my husband Steve and I have taken in three movies because we know that come December the cinemas will be back to kids stuff again.

We crammed in Inferno and were a little disappointment that the film did not match the high level of value that the book, by Dan Brown did so well. It was entertaining enough though. Yesterday we took another hit at our long list of must see films and having checked out all the programme times, we chose two films that we could see in one afternoon with just time for visit to the loo, get a drink and an ice cream before piling into one of the other nine cinemas in the complex at Cineworld. There was sadly, nothing that we wanted to see on in our home town.

Having bought the tickets for both films to save time, we recalled to one another how this seemingly film greedy little outing did not in any way compare to ‘The Old Days’ when a trip to the cinema was a night out of excellent value, where there would be an opening B movie to start off, then a cartoon, then world news; now redundant because of TV and the internet, then the trailers. There was an interval when usherettes who called you Sir or Madam, would come in only just able to lift the huge tray for selling ice cream. If you were in one of the larger cinemas there would rise magically,  a huge theatre organ and the words would appear of the screen and you could sing if you wanted to. Then and only then did the main feature begin. People would have gone out at 6pm, stood in a queue around the block to buy tickets and they would not go home until 10.30pm or so.  How we are ripped off these days doesn’t bear thinking about.  

 

 

Yesterday we saw Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Tell you what! Don’t take any notice of the reviews that say these films with Tom Cruise in, are a load of tosh. They are a very entertaining load of tosh indeed. OK Tom Cruise is not as tall as Reacher or as heavy, yet at fifty four, he is (and ask most woman) still gorgeous, and has always been a blinkin’ good actor. I am only too happy to totally ignore Lee Child’s description of Reacher because in every other way, Tom portrays Jack Reacher to perfection catching so many of the other traits given to the character by the author. Steve agrees with me to a degree. Cobie Smulders was excellent as the army Major who had succeeded him and the young Danika Yarosh, as the stroppy teenager that might have been his daughter in the movie was excellent also. Thoroughly enjoyable piece of entertainment which is what I go to the movies for; to be entertained by my choice of actors. Great stuff Tommy boy, love ya!! 

In the quick change, Steve got another coffee but I am still trying to cut down on my coffee addiction. I needed something though, and bought a seriously overpriced two scoop cup of ice cream; I chose blueberry and something or other flavour. My husband, who would not put a blueberry in his mouth at home, even though I constantly tell him that they are on of my list of magic foods, scoffed at least one third of my ice cream before the film started.

 

 

This time it was again a film based on a huge best seller The Girl on the Train. Emily Blunt was perfect in the main lead part of Rachel Watson. It was tense and the story grew nicely, though Steve hates jumps back and forth in time scale.  We both got a little confused by the two other women; the woman Rachel’s husband had had an affair with that caused the breakdown of their marriage, along with her drinking problem, and then the new younger woman, that he was cheating on his new wife with. They were we thought too similar. Rebecca Ferguson (not Steve’s favourite singer but a namesake) played the second wife Anna and the slightly more quirky Haley Bennett as Megan as the latest lover.  

The tension gave us both a headache and so we didn’t go want to go home directly, but tried out the Gourmet Burger in that same precinct. I tried a burger named after local space man Major Tom just back from six months or so in space, that was a perfectly acceptable slightly different burger, I couldn’t bring myself to ask for the ‘Naked’ version (without the bun), out of respect for the great local spaceman. A nice hour or so relaxation time spent before driving home, and having missed the worst of the traffic. 

Back in the old days the whole outing would have cost no more than a couple of quid but yesterday Steve was £70 pounds light on returning home! Cannot be right can it?

 

 

 

In Memory of Michael Hoolickin

I posted this poem a few days ago when I first read this terrible news. Then I changed it make it seem less personal when there were still questions in the air.

So here I have restored the poem to the original words, and replaced the photo that I had removed. Having seen today’s news that I have copied in at the bottom here. My husband Steve and I feel so deeply the sadness that all of Michaels friends and relatives are feeling, particularly our cousins who have lost a lovely nephew.

 

For Michael 

Someone has been murdered

No idea who

You think about his family

What ever will they do

 

Someone has been murdered

Nobody you know

But he was loved by someone

Maybe someone that you know

 

Someone has been murdered

Caught up in fight

Trying to help a girl

He saw it wasn’t right

 

Someone has been murdered

So terrible a blow

Heartbreak for a family

Of someone that you know

 

Someone has been murdered

You know their hearts will break

A nephew of your cousin

You weep for their tears sake

 

Someone has been murdered

Leaves a boy without his dad

They never will forget him

Forever now so sad

 

A man's being questioned by police over the murder of a young father from Greater Manchester.

27 year old Michael Hoolickin died of stab wounds he suffered in a fight outside a pub in Middleton

He's the son of former Oldham Athletic player Gary Hoolickin.

A 21 year old man is being questioned on suspicion of his murder after being arrested on Merseyside.